Forfeit
by blinkblink
Summary: It’s only when they have somehow clawed their way to victory that they realise Ni Jienyi has left them one last gift. Victory comes with a price. Manga-verse end!fic.


Disclaimer: Don't own Saiyuki, or any of the characters.

Notes: Although this makes some pretty oblique references to Gaiden, there aren't any spoilers. If you haven't read it, odds are you won't notice. Also, it's manga-verse.

* * *

It's only when they have somehow clawed their way to victory, with Gyokumen Koushu lying dead in a pool of her own blood at the feet of her long-defeated lover, that they realise Ni Jienyi has left them one last gift.

Even with Kougaiji and his tiny group of followers clearing a path for them, they only barely succeeded in clawing their way to the final battle, only struck down Gyuumaou's mistress by the very skin of their teeth. Bloody, injured and exhausted, with dented weapons and torn clothes, they all feel the first minute shift in the dull background hum of the Minus Wave. Like a tide constantly pressing against them, the three youkai long ago learned to unconsciously tilt their weight against it. Now it's changing. Strengthening.

They're in the huge room that houses Gyuumaou's body, crammed full of computers and wires and platforms and scaffolds. Along the edges of the room dozens of sets of manacles have been installed, each over a complex array of alchemy and electronics most of which have been further augmented with rusty red stains; whatever the process of bringing the dead demon king back to life, it has clearly been paid for in no small part by the lives of others. The massive room is humming with the rising strength of the minus wave, beginning to beat against them in harsh, crushing waves. Somehow Ni Jienyi has twisted the Minus Wave one final screw, and sent the madness into a sharp outwards spiral.

They're at the very centre of it, so close they can feel each wave hammering against them with the crushing force of a tsunami. Here there is not just the mental torment of having their minds twisted and ripped, but a very physical pressure slamming into them. Cracking their shields further and further open with each blow as they stagger against it, hands clapped to their heads.

Gojyo's the first to break, the only one of the three youkai who never felt even a flicker of madness. He snaps like brittle wood and bunches to leap as his instincts drive him onto the only human left alive in Houtou castle. Three shots from Sanzo's gun brings down a whole scaffold of pipes on top of him, burying him under hundreds of pounds of metal.

Hakkai, teeth aching and ears lengthening even under the suppressing field of the limiters, stumbles to the nearest wall. Leaning on the wall for support, he finds a pair of iron manacles clamped into the ancient stone and locks his wrists in heavy metal manacles an instant before the earrings shatter and take his control with them. He throws himself against the chains, snarling, and scrabbles at Sanzo with clawed hands as the priest runs past him.

Goku can feel the minus wave beating his control into dust, can feel the origin of the device. He stumbles after Sanzo towards it, head bent against the pounding force. Follows the flash of white in the darkness even as rage wells up inside him and his mouth begins to water. Trips around a corner as his vision begins to go red, and hears a heavy metal door slam shut. And then there is nothing but the need to kill, nothing but the desire for blood in his mouth and bones breaking under his hands.

* * *

For Goku there is no sharp division from madness to sanity; it's more like waking from a heavy sleep. He gradually perceives that his hands are fisted around unforgiving metal, that his shins are bruised and aching, and that his throat is raw. Gradually turns the unrelenting background hum into Sanzo's low voice, chanting steadily and filling the stone room with its soft warmth. Gradually focuses the blur of dirty white and gold against black into Sanzo sitting cross-legged some yards in front of him.

They're in some small room, hardly ten yards by ten yards, all cold cellar air and must. The space is separated into two by floor-to-ceiling iron bars with the locked door into the cell at the far end on Goku's right, and the entrance into the room behind him on his left. The portion in which Goku stands is hardly a yard wide, the lion's share of the space sitting behind the bars. There complex circles of gold have been beaten into the stone floor, several intersecting with each other and ornamented by elaborate writing and symbols. Set evenly around the overall design and standing on their ends are the five sutras. And sitting in the middle of them, eyes closed in concentration and one hand raised in prayer, is Sanzo. Even in the dim light, his golden hair seems to gleam in a halo around his pale face. Goku's fists loosen as he stands, watching slack-jawed.

Sanzo's voice is hypnotic. It's not just the rhythm of the chanting, which is designed with that purpose in mind, but his tone and cadence. The clarity there, something no one who had ever heard Sanzo growling for silence past a cigarette would guess his voice could hold, is strong and bright as a sunrise, cutting through the dark of night and changing the world as it passes. Goku listens to it with wide eyes, hands falling away from the bars.

He can feel the power of the sutras filling the room, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. The Maten Sutra alone he knows well, is so familiar with its particular signature – neither shade nor tone nor taste, but something he can recognize as easily all the same – that even the fearful pressure of it being unleashed doesn't set him on edge. The same isn't true of the others, and he finds himself tensing tight as a crossbow string.

Each of the sutras have their own resonance, their own identity. Each alone is incomparably greater than any youkai's _ki_. Summoned together, the power is too great for Goku to be able to fathom, is overwhelming his senses like the tide crashing down on a single crab. Here in its unfolding presence he finds himself fighting to simply hold still, to keep from running or ducking away. The sheer roiling, pulverizing might of it is horrific – and beautiful. Surrounded by it he feels tiny as an insect, staring up at all the scorching heat and strength of the sun. And Sanzo is standing between him and it, weaving that power into a form. Capturing it, holding it, controlling it with his voice. Using himself as a prism to cut it into the shape he wants, and reflecting it where he needs. Over Tenjiku, and over Shangri-la beyond it.

The Minus Wave is stopped, but the damage lives on. And Sanzo is using the power of the sutras to reverse it, bending power strong enough to _shape the world_ to his will. Power only the gods have ever held. Goku can feel him harnessing it, forcing back the crushing strength and allowing only the tiny wisp that he needs to flow out by the force of his spirit alone. His control is amazing, is exquisite, is _perfect_. The perfection of a crack-shot, of a razor-sharp mind, of Genjyo Sanzo.

And still the power being released is overwhelming, pushing at Goku, pounding him down. He stumbles away from the bars, staggers a few steps and falls. Folds himself in tight against the wall as the Tenchi Kaigen Sutras flow against him, more powerful than the Minus Wave ever was. More powerful than him. More powerful than Sanzo. Infinitely, unimaginably more powerful. This is the kind of power that destroys without leaving ashes. The kind of power mortals were never meant to hold – _can not _hold.

Goku looks up and sees the sweat pouring down Sanzo's face. Sees his hand shaking, sees his eyebrows furrowed so deeply his eyes are nearly hidden between the curves of his brows and sharp cheeks, sees the blood tricking from his ears and nose. And still the words flow out steadily, evenly, perfectly. He is making chains of pure molten energy with his mind, and using them to do his bidding.

Goku tries to unfold himself, back trembling under the sheer weight of the power filling the room – heavier than water, than sand, than metal, it has the ancient immeasurable weight of mountains. He digs a hand into crumbling masonry and drags himself to his knees.

"Sanzo –"

The chanting is growing shorter and sharper, Sanzo's voice deepening. The air around them crackles, hot and dry as a desert now.

Goku takes a step forwards, and falls flat on his face, muscles on fire. Snakes a hand along the warm stone floor, sweat dampening his hair, beading on his skin, and closes it around one of the bars. They're hot now, hot as metal in the summer sun, but he closes his hand around it all the same and pulls himself closer.

"_Sanzo_ –"

The words of the chant are shorter and shorter still, voice more and more intense. The metal bars are humming with it, stones cracking, mortar crumbling and falling like snow all around them.

Goku struggles to raise his head, the weight pressing down on him heavy as cast-iron, the muscles in his neck twinging and snapping and burning. His hair is plastered to his face, his palms slip on the scorching metal.

Goku looks up, fighting to do so with as much effort as he's ever spent throwing himself into battle. He can _see_ the power now, see the scriptures shining a holy, purifying white. See the halo of it around Sanzo, the priest glowing just as bright as the scrolls with the power of it. The power of the gods, running through his veins. At this moment he is awesome and beautiful, too beautiful for anything mortal, all white and gold and strength and power. He is burning with it, alight with holy fire, brilliant as a falling star.

And it is destroying him.

"_SANZO_ –"

Goku can recognize the words now. Knows them in his heart even if he's never said them, never even thought to. The end of the Maten Sutra.

Goku screams, shaking the bars that are burning his palms.

For one single second Sanzo opens his eyes, and time seems to roll out like a streamer in the wind. The world balanced on the head of a pin, Sanzo pauses shouldering a burden strong enough to crush a continent. Violet brighter than Goku has ever seen sears with a fire no human can hold.

"S-sanzo, don't –" He's sobbing, doesn't know when he started to cry, can't feel the tears. His hand, stretched out in front of him, is shaking. "Don't – not again –" He doesn't know where the words come from, but they are the sole thought echoing in the empty cavern of his mind. _Don't leave me again_.

Sanzo never apologizes for anything. It's a concept entirely outside his vocabulary. He would bite his tongue first; fatally, if necessary. No mistakes, no regrets, no apologies. That _is_ Genjyo Sanzo.

In that single second, the bridge between a full past and an empty future, Goku looks into Sanzo's eyes. And in glowing violet sees a first and last flicker of apology. It slices through his heart like a knife.

"_On mani hatsu mei un_!"

Goku is blasted back against the wall, tossed like a ragdoll by the final surge of power as the sutras are released in full. In the chaos of that release, his senses deafened by the nearly limitless strength as if by a bomb exploding beside him, Goku still feels it.

Still feels the very instant that Genjyo Sanzo dies right before his eyes.

* * *

For several seconds, there _is_ no Son Goku. There is nothing but pure bleeding, shattering, burning grief, and a tiny knot holding it back from its full capacity. Raging like an open-ocean storm, it pounds away at the knot seeking full freedom, the freedom to scream the entirety of its pain up to the cruel heavens.

The diadem begins to crack.

_You are a _stupid monkey_!_

The scream wails away into a choking whine; Goku scrapes bloody fingertips across uneven stones and grinds sharp teeth together. Opens golden eyes to look at the wreck of his world.

Beyond the bars, Sanzo is lying spread-eagled on his back, half-out of the circle engraved in the ground. The five sutras have fallen about him, nothing but harmless rolls of parchment on chipped stone. His eyes are open, dull violet staring up sightlessly at the ceiling.

Rage washes over him in a boiling wave and Goku throws himself at the bars, Nyoi-bou in his hand without conscious thought. He strikes at them with all the strength left in his arms, batters himself against them until the impact sets his teeth chattering and his hands shaking. They show no signs of giving; he sinks to the ground, breath coming in something between pants and sobs.

First unstoppable expressions grief and rage temporarily exhausted, Goku's head clears enough to remember the others. To remember Hakkai, in the other room, who can start hearts. He's seen him do it, seen him bring Gojyo lying cold and wet beside a churning waterfall back to life, seen him pump the water from his lungs and start his heart again. He's moving before he's finished the thought.

The huge room housing Gyuumaou has weathered the storm of the sutras well; although there's a fine layer of mortar and dust on the floor, nothing has fallen in or collapsed. The hulking corpse of the Ox King – and now it is nothing more than a corpse – sits silent and forgotten, nothing more than a morbid decoration in its own hall. The rest of the objects in the crowded room hold scarcely jollier associations; the last mementos of Gyokumen Koushu's rule will be rotten specimens in test tubes, blood-stained alchemical arrays, and a broken throne. It already feels like something out of history, like a dusty memory locked away for years and then stumbled on.

A rattle of chains draws Goku's attention to the wall, and Hakkai, and he forgets about Gyuumaou and his mistress in an instant.

The dark-haired man is standing with a hunch that hints at pain and exhaustion, blood dripping from his wrists as well as from the injuries left by Gyokumen Koushu's soldiers. His eyes as he looks at Goku are dark, and Goku knows that he must have heard what happened in the other room. Heard his screams.

"Sanzo," Goku begins, nevertheless, running over. Hakkai straightens with a metallic clatter, and looks to the pile of timber and metal near the far entrance to the hall. His monocle is missing; without it his face looks more open, vulnerable. But his good eye focuses sharply enough, pupil the narrow sliver of a youkai's keener eye.

"Get Gojyo; I can't open these chains," he says, cutting across Goku's uncertain words with unusual sharpness. Goku doesn't bother to stop, just redirects himself and keeps running.

Goku has no idea where under the mess of wood and steel poles the kappa is buried. He simply begins at the top, throwing the debris behind him careless as a dog digging a hole for a bone. After a minute the pile begins to shift on its own, and someone begins to curse in a low voice. Goku shifts his digging in that direction, and after half a minute unearths long tangled locks of crimson. Gojyo half-crawls, half-staggers out of the pile, and collapses to his knees as soon as he's free of it. He's panting hard, and there's wet blood mingled in with the bright flame of his hair. Goku ignores it.

"C'mon, you've got to get Hakkai out." Merciless in his terror, Goku grabs the cockroach by the elbow and pulls him to his feet.

"Eh? What's –" He looks around the room once, dull eyes settling on Hakkai's form. Hakkai is staring at him, eyes still narrow and dark. There is no smile on his lips, and while Goku hates Hakkai's false smiles, the stern command he sees in the quiet man's face makes his stomach twist. Gojyo nearly flinches at it, eyes widening slightly, before he sets his shoulders.

"_Ch_." Gojyo takes a stumbling step forward and holds out a hand to produce the shakujou out of thin air, brows furrowing in concentration. He doesn't bother to waste time crossing the room, just strikes at the air with his staff. The crescent flies out from the end, obedient as ever to its master's commands, straight at the manacles securing Hakkai to the wall. Slices through the links of first one, then the other in two broad whistling curves. Goku's already running, doesn't see the red-head secure his weapon.

Hakkai steps away from the wall, severed chains falling back to rattle against hard stone, and pauses for an instant to look back at Gojyo. Goku doesn't wait, and as he runs by he hears Hakkai turn to follow, and the slower shuffle of Gojyo behind.

After the high ceilings of the throne room the room beyond feels tiny and cramped, all stillness and heavy air. Like a crypt.

Behind him Hakkai steps in, and gasps quietly.

"I can't open it," says Goku, pouring out words to fill the horrible gaping silence. "You have to open it, Hakkai. Open it."

Hakkai is staring through the bars, still as a frozen tree in winter. His green eyes are wide in an expression Goku's never seen before, doesn't want to see now. But he startles at the prompt, and turns. Goku indicates the door along at the end of the cell, closed by Sanzo, and the green-eyed man sets his jaw and hurries over. Metal shines dully between his fingertips, lock-picks sliding smoothly into the dark hole in the cell door.

There's a metallic clatter from the main room and Gojyo stumbles in, leaning on his shakujou. He blanches visibly as he crosses the threshold, and stiffens to stone. Goku turns away; he doesn't want to see any more stillness. Gojyo standing horrified behind him, and Hakkai tense and cold in front of him; the room is so full of shock and grief and pain that he can feel it pouring like cement through his bones, feels like it will continue until he hardens and shatters. He clenches his jaw against a scream, and prays Hakkai will hurry up and open the door before that happens; the diadem on his head is already too fragile.

The door opens with a tiny click; it might as well be a gunshot. Hakkai starts out ahead of him but Goku gets there first anyway, ploughs to his knees so hard he skins them through his jeans.

This isn't like all the other times. Isn't like Rikudo, or the desert youkai, or Ukoku Sanzo. He can't fist his hands in the stained robes and tell Sanzo to hold on. Can't press his hands against a wound and implore the priest. Can't believe that by any speed or strength of his, he can save him.

He can only turn to Hakkai, only count on the healer as he always does, because this _cannot happen_.

Hakkai falls to his knees and pulls the shredded remains of Sanzo's bamboo breastplate and robe away from his chest, spins to straddle the blond's torso and crosses his hands over his breastbone. Closes his eyes, and begins to pump his hands in a hard, slow rhythm. "Goku," he says, without opening his eyes, voice terse and strained. "Breathe for him when I tell you. You remember how – I taught you after that incident at the waterfall."

Goku remembers, remembers Gojyo lying in a wet heap on stony ground and Hakkai and Sanzo labouring over him, remembers thinking how ridiculous it was for a kappa to drown and at the same time how utterly useless he was, while the other two struggled to start Gojyo breathing again. Remembers him and Gojyo sitting and bickering afterwards, while Hakkai forced them to learn basic resuscitation. The words come back to him now, watching the scenario replay itself with different actors. _Pinch the nose closed and make a seal over the mouth – the air needs to go into their lungs. Breathe strongly and evenly, not too fast._

He leans over the priest, and feels his throat choke up. Sanzo is staring up at him with dull eyes, dead eyes… A high-pitched whine slips out through his tight throat.

"Goku," says Hakkai, sharp as a slap. Goku shakes his head and closes his own eyes, pinches the priest's nose closed.

"Now. Three times, please."

Goku tilts Sanzo's head back, opening his jaw, and tries not to think. Not to notice the slackness of his muscles, the coolness of his lips, the utter wrongness of the whole situation.

He raises his head and Hakkai continues pounding against Sanzo's chest, trying to start his heart. Gojyo tumbles down beside him, shakujou skidding out and slicing a deep gouge in the floor as he sits.

"Now," says Hakkai again.

This has to work.

And again.

It always works; Hakkai always manages somehow.

And again.

Sanzo always recovers, even from the worst wounds.

And again.

It _can not _be otherwise.

Hakkai stops.

Sanzo isn't breathing. In his chest, his heart is still.

"What are you doing?" Goku's head whips up, voice echoing off the close stones. "Why are you stopping, he isn't – you can't stop!"

"Goku –"

"You can't give up, Hakkai! You can't! He still – we can still –"

"Goku –"

"_He can't die_." Can't. No more than the sun can set and never rise again.

"Goku," whispers Hakkai, words tearing like claws through his throat, "he's already dead."

Goku knows it's true. He can feel it, just as he feels his own heart still beating in his chest; it feels like part of it has been ripped away.

Gojyo covers his eyes with a hand, drops his head to rest in its grip. Hakkai slips off to sit in a listless slump, all the masks stripped from his face leaving only stunned sorrow.

It's all over.

Goku collapses, falling forward onto Sanzo's corpse. Tears are pouring from his eyes, but he doesn't feel them. Doesn't feel anything other than the ragged hole in his chest, and the cold eternity of Mt. Gogyou closing in around him.

No one will ever answer his call again.

No. Worse than that. Worse than going unanswered for a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years. Worse than his being alone. Sanzo is dead.

_SANZO~!_

_

* * *

_

_SANZO~!_

Genjyo Sanzo's eyes snap open.

"Ara. I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up. You must have picked up some bad habits down there."

There's a blue sky over him, and hard stone beneath him. And, from somewhere out of his range of vision, a cocky voice that feels just slightly familiar. Like an itch he can't scratch.

Sanzo frowns, and sits up.

"I suppose I should apologize for the clothes; I just couldn't help myself. Perhaps I'm growing nostalgic in my old age."

Sanzo looks down at his clothes. They're all white silk, a long sleeveless robe slit from the hip down with loose pants beneath, two golden arm bands holding up long detached sleeves, straw sandals.

He's sitting on the edge of a square pool, the smooth surface reflecting the blue of the sky overhead. It's covered with lotus plants, their delicate pink blossoms open to cherish the sun. He turns and finds an elaborate pavilion looming behind him. And, sitting on a throne a few feet away, a face that –

Sanzo frowns as a flicker of memory darts by like fish in a muddy pond, slips through his fingers and vanishes.

Judging by the sheer silks covering amble breasts it's a woman, but Sanzo has more than enough education not to jump to conclusions in a scenario like this. A thick pile of dark hair has been drawn away from the sharp face, baring a forehead marked with the chakra of the gods set above drooping eyes, a straight nose and a wide mouth. The sunlight glints off a highly polished mirror hanging by thin chains over the centre of the generous chest, while light-weight silk flows between carelessly spread legs to pool beside bare feet.

Overall, an appearance which tallies suspiciously well with the reports of Kanzeon Bosatsu furnished by Hakkai and Gojyo after the Rikudo incident.

"Have I been here before?" he asks slowly, trying to pick out the right course of action. Sanzo is rarely caught off guard, but then, he's never died before. Probably.

"That would be telling," answers almost-certainly Kanzeon Bosatsu, with a cocky grin.

Sanzo is abruptly reminded of the rest of Hakkai and Gojyo's report, specifically the details of the Merciful Goddess' personality.

"Why am I here now, then?"

"That," se answers, raising an index finger with the air of one awarding a prize, "is because you have a choice to make."

Sanzo stares at hir flatly. "A choice?"

"You were tasked with a difficult mission, Genjyo Sanzo. Most of Heaven believed it to be impossible. But you completed it, regardless of the costs. That calls for a reward." Se smiles broadly. "Which is why you're here. You have a choice to make."

"About my reward." Sanzo shifts to sit with his legs crossed, stone smooth under him. This entire situation is surreal, is ridiculous. Sitting in Heaven, if he's to believe that, bargaining for rewards with the Goddess of Mercy. He needs a cigarette.

"Bingo. Frankly though, your options are a bit limited."

"Because I'm dead."

Se beams. "Always so to the point. Yes, well, it's true. There are only so many things you can offer dead men. In this case, two. One," Se holds up a finger again, "you can be reincarnated. I can't promise when or where, or even what gender. You would make a beautiful girl, I'm sure."

Sanzo does frown, now, and the Bosatsu's grin evens out into a softer smile. "You wouldn't remember anything that had happened to Genjyo Sanzo – you wouldn't _be_ Genjyo Sanzo. But, wherever and whenever and whoever you would be, you would have a long, prosperous life." Se pauses, and looks at him with star-sharp eyes which he _knows_ can see straight into his soul. "You would be happy. That is the guarantee."

"I see," he says, slowly. Happiness? It's not something he has ever considered. The most he has ever aimed for is contentment, and he's had that rarely enough in his short life. But it hasn't felt bereft for all that. Not recently, at least. "And the other?"

"Two," se holds up a second finger, "you can go back." Se turns her gaze from him and indicates the lotus pond. Sanzo shifts to look down into the calm waters, and freezes.

Depicted in the blueness with a magic that feels similar to that of the Three Aspects is a live scene playing itself out. With a sharp hardening in his gut he recognizes himself, lying on his back in the damned sutra room. Recognizes Gojyo and Hakkai sitting beside him like puppets with their strings cuts. Recognizes Goku, bent over him with shaking shoulders.

"Go back," he manages, tight throat mauling the words.

"It's not something we are minded to offer often. 'One try only' is the usual stance. But in this case I think we can make an exception. It comes with conditions, though."

Sanzo looks over his shoulder, eyes hard and questioning. Se waves hir two fingers cheerily.

"Only two. One: the other three must choose it." Se adopts a lecturing countenance. "Normally they would each be rewarded for having completed this mission, a wish for anything they desire – within reason, of course. But bringing the dead back to life is too large a request; I can't fulfil it _and_ whatever bizarre cravings they may have. There are limits to my generosity, after all. They must be willing to give up their wishes, their rewards, for you."

Sanzo snorts, and turns around slowly to stare back into the pond. "So at the end of it all, you tell me I should have been a better person." He watches the lotus petals shivering in the gentle breeze for a few moments before speaking again. "And the other?"

"You must still have a connection to that life, that body. If not, the whole might of Heaven could not restore you, whether we were minded to or not."

There's the whisper of silk and the soft patter of naked footsteps; it's enough to warn him. He doesn't flinch when se sits down directly behind him, one outstretched arm resting on a knee within his peripheral vision. Hir nails are painted, he sees as se examines them lazily.

"Well, Genjyo Sanzo? Which do you choose? If the former, there won't be any need for me to ask your followers for permission. You haven't had an easy life. I can't promise it will get any easier; in fact, I quite doubt it."

An easy life. He can't even imagine it, doesn't even know what it means. A house, a family, a dog? A dull trade, regular meal times, children crying for his attention?

No blood on his hands, no corpses in his shadow, no guilt in his conscience.

No Cho Hakkai, scolding him from behind a laughing mask.

No Sha Gojyo, pissing him off at every turn.

No Son Goku, calling his name at all hours of the day and night.

Gold eyes flash in his memory, pleading with him in horrified desperation.

_SANZO~!_

Sanzo's hands clench as he fights not to flinch, soundless cry cutting through his chest.

Fuck. They've never let him rest before. He should have known it wouldn't be any damn different in the grave.

"It would be troublesome getting used to a new life," he drawls, staring out over the pink blossoms. "One childhood was enough."

Behind him, the Merciful Goddess snorts. It isn't an action he had ever associated with the divine, until now.

"You always were troublesome," se says. There's a whisper of wind, and her hand disappears from his sight. And reappears in the scene playing itself out between the lotus plants.

* * *

A silvery bell peals, soft and gentle, and the world freezes.

The world at this minute to Gojyo is Goku's sobs and Hakkai's quiet breaths. They stop without warning, as if cotton has been crammed into his ears. He looks up slowly, and sees that neither of them are moving.

"Do you remember me, Mr. Full-Blooded Red-Head?"

Gojyo freezes, for an instant sits as still as the other two. Then, like ice breaking up with the spring thaw, he shifts stiffly to sit with his hands fisted beside him. "Yeah. I remember. You're a bit late for blood transfusions." His voice sounds bitter even to his ears; he doesn't care. Se ignores it, speaking in a boisterous tone.

"I've come to congratulate you, Sha Gojyo. You succeeded far beyond our expectations. Gyuumaou's revival is thwarted, and the Minus Wave reversed."

"If you know that, then you know I didn't have a fucking thing to do with any of it. Hakkai and Goku killed that bitch, and Sanzo – Sanzo reversed the Minus Wave." He finishes the sentence through clenched teeth, sounds as if he's speaking through a mouthful of dirt.

"You sell yourself short; you were instrumental in storming the castle, in striking down Gyokumen Koushu. And in any case, regardless of your immediate actions tonight, without your aid your goals could not have been completed." Hir voice is grand, magnanimous. Slathering praise on him with a generous hand. It makes him sick.

"Get to the point."

"I am here," se announces, smile evident in hir tone "to give you your reward. For your part in the success of this mission, you may choose your wish. Anything within reason – nothing boring and cliché like eternal life or universal power," se adds, as if those were requested every other week.

"Are you serious?" He doesn't turn. Doesn't move his head an inch, doesn't let himself even think about looking behind him.

"Very. One wish, Sha Gojyo. Money? Success? A pretty wife? Ask away."

His control shatters like a pitched mirror and he spins around in a tight, furious circle. "How dare you. How _fucking dare you_ come and offer that to me now, when he's lying dead _right there_ with his monkey crying over his goddamn corpse! Money? Women?" Gojyo spits at hir feet. "The hell am I gonna do with those? The hell am I gonna do with anything you give me, other than remember what it cost? You want to do something? Bring the goddamn priest back. Reward him for his fucking idiocy, so I can spend the rest of my life laughing at him!"

The goddess raises a calm eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" he demands, hand clenched to keep himself from releasing the shakujou's crescent. "Bring him back. Right goddamn now."

Eyes deeper than the night sky harden to stare into him unwaveringly, thought and attention wider than the world focused solely on him, until he begins to shiver. Finally, se nods and breaks the stare. "Very well. We shall see."

Far off, a bell chimes and se disappears. Gojyo sinks, panting, to his knees, and tries to stop shaking.

* * *

A silvery bell peals, soft and gentle, and the world freezes.

Goku's sobs and Gojyo's deep, pained pants disappear as thought sliced out of the air.

Hakkai blinks slowly, and sees that they have stopped moving entirely, as if turned to stone.

"I have heard you have an excellent memory, Cho Hakkai," says a mocking voice behind him.

Hakkai tenses so sharply he too might almost have turned to stone. "It is fair enough," he replies, his flat voice carelessly mismatched against the bland effacement of his words.

"Then you remember me." It's not a question, and the tone suggests that in fact the asker knew the answer all along.

"I have that honour," he says regardless, icy voice covering a cold sea of rage.

"I must offer you congratulations," says the goddess, in a bright tone. "You have completed your mission against vast odds, managed it surprising well, really. Very impressive."

"I can't agree." The words slip out like icicles, slicing slickly through the air as they fall to the ground.

He can hear the smile in her voice, praise for a well-performing child. "How modest. But now isn't the time for modesty. I have come to recognize your achievements, Cho Hakkai. I've come to reward you."

Hakkai looks up at the opposite wall, and gives a short, harsh burst of laughter. "Achievements? Which achievements would those be?"

"You have prevented the resurrection of Gyuumaou and repaired the damage of the Minus Wave, as you were ordered."

In front of him, Gojyo is sitting with his head bowed, face hidden behind a crimson curtain. The curve of Goku's back over Sanzo stands out like a sun-licked scimitar in the dim light, his fingers knotted in torn fabric. They are each their own individual portrait of grief, but looking at the two of them only holds up a mirror to his own.

"Have you considered," he asks with arctic frigidness, half-turning, "judging success or failure not by what is gained but by what was sacrificed to achieve it?"

There's a gentle shift of fabric, something light and silken. "In those terms too, you would be successful," responds the goddess, more softly now. "One man against thousands of tortured youkai and murdered humans, against the horrors of Gyuumaou's revival. The price is not so large."

Hakkai doesn't answer. Stares at the bars beside him, and wonders whether he will be able to escape this cage a second time.

"And so," se continues, upbeat once more, "I've come to give you your reward. One wish. Anything within limits; nothing tawdry and power-mongering."

"You have come to offer me a reward."

"Yes."

"Here and now, you choose to reward me for my success."

A sliver of impatience slides into hir tone. "Yes; I'm a busy person, don't knock it. One wish. Choose. What's it to be? A nice little house? A successful school? Happiness for a certain sibling? I've never been called small-minded."

Hakkai's spine snaps straight, and he turns with a snarl. "What do you mean?"

The goddess is standing behind him, leaning up against the stone wall with one bare foot resting back against it in a casual pose. "I can't offer you her old life, she is much too long-gone for that. But passing on prosperity for her future? No trouble."

"Does she need it?" He can feel himself retreating into the silence those memories always hold for him, wrapping it around himself like a shroud.

Se shrugs. "That's not my department. Her choices were not exactly in favour with Heaven's morals, but her short life was marred with great suffering; that gets taken into account. If you wish for her prosperity, it may be a wasted wish, or it may not. It's up to you."

Hakkai stares up into those eyes, and reads absolutely nothing in them. Nothing but cold eternity staring back at him, looking past all the layers of masks and shadows straight down into his soul, until he has to look away or break.

He looks back to Sanzo, lying limp on the floor behind him, with Goku and Gojyo by his side.

"What about him? He isn't long gone. Can you bring him back?"

A sly look flashes over Kanzeon Bosatsu's face. "Oh? You'd rather save the priest than your sister?"

"Can you?" grits out Hakkai. Se shrugs.

"You must make the choice. Matters affecting the dead are the most pricy wishes – I'm not technically supposed to offer them. You have to take them on blind faith. I can't tell you whether your sister needs your help, and I can't tell you whether you can bring him back or not. You have to choose between them without knowing."

He lets out his breath in a harsh sigh, drops his head to rest on his knee.

"They both chose their fate. They both chose to die. You aren't obligated to help either of them," says the goddess, gently.

Hakkai's fingers clench. Kanan – He closes his eyes. Kanan chose to die. It's the undeniable truth, the truth he still flails himself with. He hadn't been fast enough, hadn't been strong enough to save her. Hadn't been enough anything, for her to live on for him.

And Sanzo?

"Sanzo didn't choose to die," he chokes out without looking up.

"He chose to use the sutras, knowing it would kill him sure as a knife to the stomach," Hakkai flinches, but se continues in a flat tone, "He chose death."

He stiffens, teeth clenching. Fights the easier battle to forget the harder one. "But that wasn't his intent. It was just the only way. The only way to do the job _you ordered him to_."

There's a short cutting silence, Hakkai baiting the goddess with his mouth set in a hard line.

"When," asks the goddess, breaking the thorny silence with the first hint of what sounds like genuine emotion he's ever heard from hir, "have you ever known Genjyo Sanzo to do follow an order he disagreed with?"

_From the day I was born to the day I die, the only side I'm on is my own_.

Sanzo alone knows why he chose to do what he did. But regardless of the goddess' words, Hakkai knows at least one thing with absolute certainty: Sanzo didn't make his choice with the objective of throwing away his life. Knows, without even having seen it, that the priest fought right up until the bitter end.

For the life of him, he doesn't know what the choking sound that escapes his throat is.

"Well, Cho Hakkai?"

Hakkai sits up. Looks down at Sanzo, and notices for the first time his expression: fierce dedication, even in death.

"Save his life." He turns to stare the goddess in the eye. "Save Sanzo's life."

Se nods. "Very well. We shall see."

Somewhere beyond the walls of the room, a bell rings. Se disappears.

Hakkai falls back into a slump, the heel of one hand pressed against his forehead, eyes closed.

* * *

Sanzo stares watches as the Merciful Goddess talks to Gojyo and Hakkai one after the other. He can't hear their words, but he can read their expressions with more accuracy than any scroll.

Se returns Hakkai to whatever stillness se's imposed on them, and walks slowly over to Goku. He's still bent over the body – over _his _body – hands fisted in the stained shirt. He's crying, Sanzo knows without being able to hear it, can see his shoulders shaking.

It's ridiculous, completely impossible, but his own shirt feels wet. Just some psychological crap, association or identification something. He forcefully represses the urge to wipe at it.

To his surprise, the goddess doesn't say anything to the monkey. Doesn't try to goad him into conversation, doesn't even scold him for his tears.

Just leans over him from behind and wraps hir arms around him in a gentle hug. In her arms, Goku starts and, for just an instant, looks up.

Somewhere in the distance a bell rings, and se vanishes.

"Well, that was fun."

Sanzo turns to finds hir sitting in hir original position on the ground behind him. "It seems like you've met the first qualification. Aren't you glad I made you take those bastards along with you?"

Sanzo frowns, eyes narrowing. "_You_ made –"

The goddess waves a vague hand, already uninterested in the detour se initiated. "What about the second?"

"The second –" He remembers, hir voice in his ears. _You must still have a connection to that life, that body. _His frown deepens.

"Well?" Se raises an eyebrow.

Mind on the problem at hand, Sanzo raises a hand unconsciously to rub at the irritating dampness of his shirt, and then looks down. There really is a stain there, a wet spot in the fabric over his still heart. His brows knit together as he stares at it. It wasn't there when he woke up, he's certain of that much.

Behind him, Kanzeon Bosatsu stands and claps. He looks up to see that se's beaming. "Well! Looks like that monkey's good for something after all."

"Eh?" Sanzo's eyes flick to the pond again, to Goku bent over him with his face buried against Sanzo's lifeless chest.

"You'll get your wish, Genjyo Sanzo. Pick up your life where you left off. No special benefits or concessions – it's up to you to do with it as you will."

Se stops on the step above him, and raises a hand. Reaches out, and presses the tips of hir fingers against his forehead. There's a soft heat which quickly escalates to a scalding pressure. He steps back, trips, and falls. As he tumbles down into darkness, he barely catches hir soft words, "Live well, Genjyo Sanzo."

He hardly notices. In his head, a familiar voice is calling him.

_Sanzo! Sanzo! SAN-ZO!_

_

* * *

_

Goku hears the bell chime, but doesn't take notice of it. He hears the quiet slap of bare feet on stone, but doesn't take notice of it. He feels the warmth of bare skin against his shoulders, unfamiliar arms wrapped around his shoulders; he doesn't take notice of it.

And then, a quiet voice in his ear. "Call him, monkey."

For an instant there is just the slightest flash of familiarity, of warmth and the smell of sakura.

He looks up, and it's gone.

Beneath his fisted hands, Sanzo's chest is beginning to grow cold. Goku glances back down slowly, eyes wide. Sanzo is still staring at the ceiling, as if star-gazing. As if searching for the sun in a black sky.

Goku feels the diadem crack further along with his sob. Feels the simple, vindictive maliciousness of the Seiten Taisei leaking into him. He should fight it, should resist, should be strong.

He can't. There's no room for that in his head, no attention he can spare for it. He has only one single thought, echoing through his mind like the peal of a bell strong enough to shake its tower to the foundations: _Sanzo!_

On his forehead, the hairline cracks widen. In his mind, his pain dulls as the Seiten Taisei seeps in further. _Sanzo!_

Goku lowers his head, shoulders slumping. There's no point in calling anymore. There's no one to call, no one to answer. That knowledge only makes him want to more than ever. Goku closes his eyes, and screams into the void while his limiter splinters. _SAN-ZO!_

Beneath him there's a deep desperate gasp, and then heavy coughing. Behind him, Hakkai and Gojyo both shout. Goku opens his eyes as control slips away from him, frantically grasping at its very edges and trying to drag it back, to see – Sanzo?

There's a dizzying, sickening moment where the universe seems to expand and then contract with him stuck in the middle, wind rushing in his ears and the malevolent rage of the Seiten Taise burning for a few hot seconds in his head. And then he's slumped on his knees with the heavy weight of the diadem newly-secure around his forehead, and cool fingers resting in his hair.

"I'm gone for five minutes, and you fall apart," says a gruff voice. Goku's heart leaps so hard it hurts, eyes flashing open wide in shock.

Sanzo's sitting up in front of him, torn robe and shredded shirt and all, staring at him and trying very hard to look pissed as hell. He hasn't quite pulled it off, but Goku hardly notices.

"S-Sanzo? Sanzo!" Before he knows it, he's reached out and grabbed Sanzo's shoulder; it's warm and firm under his hand. "Y-you're –" he hiccoughs; his nose is running, and his eyes are full of tears again. He wipes at them impatiently with the back of his hand, and hears Hakkai and Gojyo moving closer behind him.

"You were pretty damn lucky that time, Sanzo. Nearly kicked it for good. We would have had a hell of a time finding a sutra to read for you," Gojyo stands right behind him, resting his arm on Goku's shoulder; Goku glances up at him. Under his cocky grin, the relief is starkly evident.

"Oh really?" asks Sanzo, blandly. The composure doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I don't recall asking you to."

Hakkai squats down on Sanzo's other side, smiling. It's not his usual carefree mask; it's a smaller, tighter, truer smile. "Maa, Gojyo, it's not kind to mock the recently-dead. Who knows how many brain cells he may have lost?"

"I see your personality hasn't improved," mutters Sanzo, taking his hand back and turning to Goku. "And you, stupid monkey. What the hell were you doing, breaking your limiter again?"

Goku ducks, expecting the harisen, but it doesn't come. When he looks up, Sanzo's lips are just – slightly – upturned.

"Break it again, and I'll break you," he threatens, making to stand. Goku automatically scrambles forward to help him, and this time does receive a cuff on the head. It isn't as hard as it could have been.

On their feet now, they all pause to look around the tiny room. Sanzo nods at the scriptures, and Hakkai bends to pick them up. Gojyo glances out the door towards the throne room, then pulls his cigarette pack from his pocket and taps one out.

"So. We've saved the world, restored the balance of good and evil, found the scriptures, and somehow managed to do it all without any permanent losses. What now?" He lights the cigarette with a metallic click.

Sanzo glances at the five scrolls Hakkai holds cradled in his arms, all apparently identical, and picks out two without hesitation. Looks up in surprise. "What do you mean, idiot?" he drawls, unfolding the scriptures to place them on his shoulders. Goku stands by his side, cheeks feeling like they'll split from his grinning, basking in Sanzo's presence. Right here and now, everything is perfect.

"Now we have to go back."

END


End file.
